Wipro onboards 10,000 freshers in FY25, remains cautious on hiring in FY26

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IT services major Wipro has concluded fiscal year 2024-25 with a fresher addition of 10,000, on par with its full year target of hiring 10,000-12,000 freshers.

For FY26, though Wipro aims to hire a similar number from campuses, the company will take a call after observing the current business environment which has been reeling under macroeconomic uncertainties.

Speaking at the company’s earnings conference, Saurabh Govil, CHRO, Wipro said, “We ended the fiscal FY25 with approximately 10,000 freshers hired. And we look to continue to see that, but we'll also keep a very close look at what's happening in the environment.”

“We don't want a situation where we onboard people and we don't have channels of deployment. So we'll keep a very close look. But that's the plan that continuously keep growing and adding,” he added.

Govil shared that Wipro has more headroom to improve employee utilisation rates in the current environment of low growth. The company’s attrition rate too has continued to dip in the fourth quarter.

“We are also very cognizant that we shouldn't do anything, which is onboard people and not deploy them, or hire people which we can't take. We have burnt our fingers three years back. So we are very, very conscious that we do the right way,” he said.

On wage hikes

Echoing TCS’ commentary on wage hikes, Govil emphasised that while Wipro has been doing its wage hike cycles ahead of time, this year it will take a call closer to the date.

“We were the ones who did wage hikes ahead of time in September. We had done the previous time in December. We are still very far from that time, and in this uncertain environment we will decide closer to the date,” he said.

Headcount addition

Overall, the company added 614 employees in the fourth quarter of the previous fiscal, as the IT services company continues to reassess its lateral and campus hiring models to focus on improving utilisation rate of employees to grow margins.

For FY25, Wipro’s headcount increased by 732 to 233,346, from 232,614 in the previous year. The company's headcount has been declining for the previous two fiscal years.

Sequentially, the attrition rate dropped to 15 percent for the last-twelve-month (LTM) basis. In Q3, attrition stood at 15.3%.

Last week, India's largest IT services company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) reported a net quarterly addition of 625 employees.

Wipro reported a 6.4 percent sequential rise in net profit to Rs 3,569.6 crore for the quarter ended March 2025, while gross revenue rose marginally to Rs 22,504.2 crore. The IT major’s operating margin for the quarter stood at 17.5 percent, expanding 1.1 percentage points year-on-year.